Mario Fischer new General Secretary of the CPCE

Warsaw, 25 Feb 2018

Author:

i.monjencs

Date:

Feb 26, 2018

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The Council of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe, CPCE, elected Pastor Dr Mario Fischer as the new General Secretary during its session in Warsaw last weekend. Dr Fischer is being appointed as the first full-time General Secretary. The Council had already taken this fundamental decision in Rome in 2016 and then initiated the selection process.

Fischer, who was born in Darmstadt in 1976, is a pastor of the Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau. After studying theology and philosophy in Mainz, Marburg, Rome and Munich, he obtained his doctorate in Munich under Gerd Haeffner S.J. on the meaning of religious experience in Heidegger’s early religious phenomenology. He practised as a pastor in various parishes around the Rhine-Main region. Besides serving as a pastor, he was actively involved in the voluntary fire service. In 2010, Dr Fischer worked as a special assistant in the CPCE’s head office in Vienna, where he took charge of various projects such as the stewarding programme for the 2012 General Assembly in Florence. He became the manager of the CPCE’s head office in 2016.

“Mario Fischer offers three valuable assets: theological expertise, international experience in the church and a passion for organisation,” says Gottfried Locher, President of the CPCE. “The Council, and particularly the Presidium, has confidence in him. We have high expectations and will do everything in our power to support our new General Secretary in his demanding role.”

Dr Fischer will assume office following the General Assembly of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe, which will take place in Basle, Switzerland, from 13 to 18 September 2018 and which he is heavily involved in organising. Of the key tasks that Dr Fischer has identified for the forthcoming period of office from 2019 to 2024, he highlights intensifying both church fellowship in worship and the social responsibility of the churches. Dr Fischer is succeeding General Secretary Dr Dr h.c. Michael Bünker, who is unavailable for re-election due to his pending retirement from the office of Bishop of the Protestant Church A.C. in Austria in 2019.